During the period when a young child is being toilet trained it has come to be recognized that a specialized training pant is a critical part of the training process. This has become of even greater importance in recent years as disposable diapers have become more and more technologically advanced in the art of keeping babies feeling warm and dry.
Psychology plays an important role in toilet training a child, and training pants are known to be a beneficial psychological aid in the training process. Three of the most important factors in this process are that the child is old enough, willing to co-operate and free of diapers. Once the first two criteria have been met, the next step is for the child to stop wearing diapers during the day. Diapers hinder the training process in two key ways. An important feature of training pants is that they approximate a normal underpant. Unlike a diaper, the training pant is put on or removed by the child with little or no adult assistance so long as the pant remains unsoiled. The child, therefore, associates the training pant with greater personal independence.
The other problem which diapers pose for the toilet training child is that they are designed to keep the child dry. Traditional cloth diapers were always used in association with a rubber pant. Virtually all present day disposable diapers keep the child feeling warm and comfortable. All diapers effectively operate to keep wetness in and to keep air out. A high degree of absorbency, padding and an impermeable outer layer all combine in a diaper to give the child a sense of warmth and comfort.
In the present invention it has been recognized that an effective training pant allows the child to feel the cold of its wetness in order to alert the child to the discomfort associated with a bowel or bladder accident.
Many prior art attempts have been made at developing a disposable training pant. The most recent of these is, U.S. Pat. No. 4,743,239 (Cole). Cole teaches a disposable training panty which is perforated along the sides to facilitate removal of the panty after the child has either a bowel accident or a bladder accident. By perforating or scoring the sides of the training panty, the panty can be removed without traversing the lengths of the legs of the user thereby reducing the incidents of contamination on the child and in the area surrounding the child. The Cole training panty is fully lined throughout the inside of the diaper with two thicknesses of absorbent layers and has a third thicker layer in the crotch area. The outer lining is a generally waterproof material comprising a moisture barrier.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,619,649 (Roberts) teaches a disposable toddler training panty having a thin plastic outer layer and an inner surface with a comfortable soft inner lining and separable side seams from the waist band to the leg band. The Roberts disposable training pant has an impermeable outer plastic layer fully lined by the soft inner layer.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,671,793 (Hults) teaches a disposable training pant for young children having a plastic outer cover and an inner absorbent lining which is thin at the sides and thick in the middle crotch area. The inner absorbent lining is replaceable and lines the outer moisture impermeable layer fully.
Four other United States patents disclose disposable undergarments: U.S. Pat. No. 3,756,878 (Willot); U.S. Pat. No. 3,599,640 (Larson); U.S. Pat. No. 4,205,679 (Repke); U.S. Pat. No. 2,748,772 (Titone).
An effective training pant should allow the child to feel the cold of its wetness in order to alert the child to the discomfort associated with the bowel or bladder accident. This discomfort will only be readily apparent if the outer material of the training pant is permeable to moisture. This permeability allows the child to feel the coldness of the wetness against its body because when air moves across the wet surface warmth is not retained and the child feels cold. An important aspect of the training panty of the present invention not recognized by the prior art is that it is adapted so that the child readily feels the coldness associated with his or her own wetness after a bowel or bladder accident. Two aspects of the present invention operate to achieve a controlled level of discomfort to alert the child. The first is the presence of a moisture permeable outer covering and the second is that the training panty of the present invention is adapted to release wetness to a controlled extent.
An important psychological feature of a training panty is the closeness with which the panty approximates a normal panty. In the present invention the outer permeable covering is not fully lined by the inner absorbent portion and, therefore, more closely approximates the feel of a normal panty.
It is appreciated that the training panty should look like a normal panty when first put on by the child. However, in the event that the child has a bladder or bowel accident the panty should be readily removable while minimizing any contamination to the child or the surrounding environment. The present invention details an embodiment in which the secured sides of the disposable panty are readily opened for removal in the event of an accident. Since the panty is disposable it can be easily discarded in a sterile manner.